2025

The State of Financial Services Compliance

arrow_greenInsights from 300 Global Financial Firms

SteelEye's Annual Compliance Health Check Report

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Discover how compliance leaders are responding to a multitude of challenges, budget shifts, and regulatory change.

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  • Benchmark your compliance maturity

  • Find out where firms are investing in surveillance

  • Uncover common blindspots and risk areas

  • Understand the growing role of AI in compliance

  • Regional and firm-type breakdowns included

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Executive Summary

SteelEye's Annual Compliance Health Check Report surveys the views and experiences from across the global compliance industry to provide comprehensive insights into the issues and trends shaping today's compliance functions. 

This 2025 report reveals a compliance landscape under mounting pressure, but also on the cusp of transformation.

Firms continue to face challenges across surveillance, data governance, and regulatory interpretation, yet most are responding with increased investment, smarter systems, and stronger internal alignment.

This year's results point to three key trends:

  • Compliance budgets are increasing
    Over three-quarters of firms increased compliance spend in 2024, with many citing technology and talent as key drivers.
  • Surveillance is evolving
    Firms are expanding their monitoring capabilities across communications and trading channels, with a marked rise in AI adoption and voice data integration.
  • Confidence in surveillance coverage is growing
    An encouraging number of firms are 'mostly' or 'completely' confident their surveillance systems are surveilling all of their business records, but challenges remain in proving effectiveness and navigating near-constant regulatory change.

How, if at all, does your firm currently monitor and supervise voice calls for market manipulation and conduct risk?

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The report highlights the
evolving nature of compliance challenges
and the need for firms to leverage technology to enhance compliance effectiveness

Key highlights:

Varied Strategic & Tactical Challenges:

The most common challenge identified by respondents was using Management Information (MI) effectively to demonstrate the compliance risk to the business.

Technology Remains a Major Cost Driver:

With the data suggesting that many firms are investing to keep up, not necessarily to get ahead.

Varying AI Adoption Across APAC:

Aside from Singapore, which actually has the highest level of AI adoption globally, the rest of the APAC region has been the slowest to adopt AI overall.

Manual Workloads Across Compliance Teams:

Despite continued investment in compliance technology, and the increasing use of AI tools, many firms are still burdened by high levels of manual work.

Approaches to Voice Surveillance:

Firms report a variety of approaches to voice surveillance: some rely on manual sampling, others have adopted transcription, while a few don't monitor voice at all. 

Cultural Drivers of Compliance:

Responses suggest that both external pressure from regulation and internal commitment to brand reputation are important in driving compliant behaviour.

77%

of firms increased compliance spend in 2024

77% of firms increased compliance spend in 2024

Compliance expenditure continues to rise across the industry. With 77% increasing spend, 25% of those described that increase as significant.  This marks an uptick from the start of 2024, when only 69% reported any increase, and fewer firms reported large-scale investment gains. 

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42%

of firms now monitor WhatsApp

42% of firms are now monitoring WhatsApp, making it the third most monitored channel.

Microsoft Teams and Email continue to be the two most monitored channels, while WhatsApp has moved above Zoom to join them on the podium. This was in part driven by a significant rise in UK firms monitoring WhatsApp, jumping by 15% in a single year to 53%.

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68%

have already implemented some AI, with another 25% mid-rollout

68% of firms have already implemented some AI into their compliance processes, and 25% are in the process of doing so.

This marks an increase in adoption compared to the previous year. Only 2% of firms are not looking at AI and have no plans to, indicating an almost universal industry commitment to exploring AI technology.

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96%

of those using AI reported measurable improvements in surveillance

96% of firms that have implemented AI are seeing an improvement in their compliance processes

53% of these firms say that the improvements are 'significant'. Not a single company reported any deterioration of their compliance processes due to AI, with just 4% reporting no noticeable change. In other words, for the vast majority, AI has either met or exceeded expectations in terms of boosting compliance effectiveness.

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16%

currently monitor mobile voice calls

16% of firms currently capture and monitor mobile phone conversations.

This low level of coverage is surprising. Given how much business is conducted via mobile devices today, this gap could represent a meaningful risk if not addressed. 

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0%

can monitor communications in more than three languages

0% of respondents indicated that they could monitor communications in more than three languages.

Given the number of languages spoken across most global organisations, this is a clear concern. While many firms are expanding their monitoring across two or three languages, 20% still operate surveillance systems that only accommodate a single language, highlighting a clear challenge for global organisations. 

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